With the development of the Internet and the prevalence of personal mobile devices, the storage of electronic information or data is becoming more and more important. In particular, servers can be used to store a vast amount of such electronic information or data to meet the need of data storage. Generally speaking, a server (e.g., a rack server) is installed in a chassis, and the chassis is mounted on a rack via a pair of slide rail assemblies each composed of two or three slide rails. Thus, the installation of the server on the rack is completed.
Some slide rail assemblies in the prior art are equipped with ball retainers, each containing a plurality of balls, so that slidably connected slide rails can displace relative to one another via the balls. Such slide rail assemblies are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,988,626 and 6,379,045, which are referenced when the present invention was made.
As the chassis of a server is mounted and positioned on the slide rails (e.g., the inner rails) of a pair of the foregoing slide rail assemblies (i.e., those with ball retainers and balls) typically through the mounting members provided on the lateral sides of the chassis (e.g., the screws 62 in FIG. 3 and FIG. 9 of the aforesaid '626 patent), the size or specifications of the mounting members must be within predetermined allowable installation errors of the slide rail assemblies; otherwise, the mounting members on the lateral sides of the chassis of the server may bump into the ends of the ball retainers, which are located between slidably connected slide rails, when the slide rails are displaced relative to one another. Should the ball retainers be deformed as a result, the slide rails of the slide rail assemblies will have problem being displaced smoothly.
More specifically, referring to FIG. 8, a chassis (not shown) is mounted on a slide rail assembly 102 via at least one mounting member 101. The slide rail assembly 102 at least includes two slide rails (e.g., a first rail 103 and a second rail 104) and a ball retainer 105 which is disposed between the first rail 103 and the second rail 104. The ball retainer 105 is equipped with a plurality of balls 106 by means of which the first rail 103 and the second rail 104 can slide relative to each other. The chassis is mounted on the second rail 104 via the mounting member 101. When the second rail 104 is slid in a longitudinal direction relative to the first rail 103, the chassis is slid along with the second rail 104 in the longitudinal direction relative to the first rail 103 due to the mounting member 101.
Referring to FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 in conjunction with FIG. 8, when the slide rail assembly 102 mounted with the chassis (FIG. 8 to FIG. 10 showing only the mounting member 101 of the chassis) is installed on a rack, the ball retainer 105 of the slide rail assembly 102 may be deformed if the total weight of the chassis and the electronic components therein is too great. Once such deformation takes place, the lateral portion 107 of the ball retainer 105 may be tilted in a lateral direction F1 (i.e., toward the mounting member 101), as shown in FIG. 9, and when the second rail 104 is pulled in a longitudinal direction F2 relative to the first rail 103 from an initial position (see FIG. 8) to the position shown in FIG. 10, the mounting member 101 on the second rail 104 may collide with the end 108 of the lateral portion 107 of the ball retainer 105, thereby deforming the ball retainer 105 and hindering the second rail 104 from sliding relative to the first rail 103. Even worse, the slide rail assembly 102 may be damaged.